Abstract:

This presentation will describe and analyse the process and results of a pedagogical experimentation involving students attending a pre-service teacher training program in a university in Quebec (Canada). In an empowerment perspective for learners using a self-regulated learning formula, a base for electronic resources was created in relation to the content of two distinct university courses, although both courses have certain themes in common. The resources base contains text, audio and video documents on three themes shared by the two courses. It has been exploited according to a self-regulated learning formula, understood as reported by Knowles (1986). According to this researcher, self-regulated learning is a process in which learners take responsibility, with or without the help of others: of the planning of their learning (the diagnostic of their learning needs, the formulation of their learning objectives, the identification of human and material learning resources, the choice and application of appropriate learning strategies), of the conduct of their learning, and of the evaluation of their own learning activities. This approach is supposed to increase the autonomy of the learners and vary their learning strategies. While suggesting a self-regulated learning context, we have principally aimed at bringing about progress in students from a low self-directed learning stage (stage 1 according to Knowles) to a high self-directed learning stage (stage 4 according to the same author), characterized by: the capacity to identify personal needs and objectives; the mastery of autonomous management strategies of the resources (information sources: documents, experts, peers, time, different personal resources, etc.); the self-regulation capacity of the learning; the ability to integrate information and communication technologies in their learning and teaching. Three self-regulated learning activities have been suggested to 270 students registered in the two courses: 1. the writing in teams of an opinion document from the information contained in documents merged into a unit of the bank of electronic resources; 2. The analysis of three case studies, which required the mobilisation of the knowledge acquired subsequently to the consultation of documents in the bank of resources. 3. The comparative analysis of the three work situations. The degree of autonomy in learning questionnaire of Knowles (1986) was administered in order to identify the learners’ profiles and the prospective impacts of the proposed tasks on the profiles’ change. Comments have been collected in line with the tasks’ nature, the pedagogical formula utilized and the exploitation of the bank of resources. Our intervention will discuss the students’ self-perceptions as for their degree of autonomy as learners, for the gaps between these self-perceptions and the encountered challenges in the accomplishment of the proposed tasks as well as for the impact of the utilization of the bank of electronic resources on the harmonization of contents in the formation program in question.